


Tea and Sympathy

by vass



Category: Vicar of Dibley
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-02
Updated: 2008-10-02
Packaged: 2017-10-02 01:29:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vass/pseuds/vass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a Sunday in which David is born again, and a vicar and her verger take tea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea and Sympathy

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Geraldine is quoting the New International version. And her theology's at least that dicey in canon.

Alice wrung her hands: "Oh, I'm so glad it's all over, Vicar. Although I'll never recover from the humilation, I hope that one day I may again hold my head in public."  
Geraldine put her head on one side. "I think we've all learned a few things about humiliation." She dumped a few chocolate biscuits on a plate and handed it to Alice, reaching again into the bag on her own behalf. "I think *David's* learned a few things about humiliation too, at least there's that." She stabbed the air with the biscuit as she spoke, then bit into it. "What I want to know is who printed the pew sheet."  
Alice's smile wavered. "That was me, Vicar. Frank asked me to step in at the last minute."  
Geraldine hastily swallowed her second biscuit. "And I'm sure nobody noticed it. Such an easy mistake to make, too, lay for lie. Even if they do, it'll just, um, *enrich* their view of the Holy Family. And it wasn't your fault that you tripped right after that reading. And knocked Hugo over. And it's not his fault he knocked his father into the font. During a baptism. It is a *little* bit of a pity that David is *such* a stickler about that part of the Nicene Creed. He was muttering it outside, "I believe *one* baptism for the remission of sins. One, Vicar, not two." But he'll be much more popular with the Evangelicals now." Geraldine smiled a little viciously at the thought, then saw her verger's expression.  
"Oh Alice, don't worry, silly! Everyone will have forgotten it after next Sunday's disast -- er, I mean, listen to the Bible. Matthew 6:34, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. That means don't worry about it any more, my little pumpkin."

...

"How about some tea, Geraldine?"  
"Yes, all right."  
"Shall I get it?"  
"Yes, if you like?"  
"Yes, I'll be mother." Alice smiled and got up. She came back in holding a tray containing a small pot of tea, and one normal white teacup and one pink, frilled monstrosity. She took the white cup for herself.  
"What's this, then?"  
"It's a teacup."  
"Yes, I can see it's a teacup. And I think you made it yourself, didn't you? In art class?" Alice ducked her head and smiled. "It's a... a baby's bonnet, isn't it?"  
"N-no, it's a cabbage."  
"Of course it is. And you painted it pink and white, didn't you?"  
"Yes, to be like candy canes. For a Christmas feel."  
"You do know it's not Christmas yet?"  
"Yes I *do*, and I thought that with this teacup I could *remind* you of Christmas, and make you feel that it's not so very far away," Alice said confidingly.

She poured the tea into Geraldine's cup. Geraldine suppressed a yell and held her soaked, scalding skirt away from her crotch, dropped it and fanned her hand, then swore and tried to pick the skirt up in her other hand and cover her mouth with the afflicted one.

"I don't think your cup is completely watertight, Alice," Geraldine said. "Did you glaze and fire it properly, the way it says in the Good Book?"  
Alice's eyelids filled with dew, and her entire lower face quivered. Geraldine relented. "No, don't you worry. It's my skirt that's the problem. It's a naughty, naughty skirt -" she scolded it with her finger "-and I'm going to take it out and burn it right now."  
Alice looked solemn. "You shouldn't do that, Geraldine. You should soak it in cold water and toothpaste to get rid of the teastains. That's what my mum always does."  
"Does she? I'll go and do that then. You wait right here. Sit back down. Sit, sit."

 

Geraldine returned, now wearing purple flannel pyjamas printed with enormous yellow cartoon rabbits. "Good as new."  
Alice's face was still solemn. "I've been thinking about it, Geraldine, and I've decided something. I think you've had a pretty bad week."  
"Well, I didn't really need you to tell me that, Alice, but-"  
"But that isn't what I've decided. I've decided that, to cheer you up, I'm going to do what Hugo's older brother used to do to cheer me up when we were in high school. Well, not when we were *in* high school, more during the holidays, because he went to boarding school..."  
"I didn't know Hugo had an older brother."  
"Yes, David junior. He-he died in a farming accident."  
"Oh, did he really?"  
"Yes, it was very sad. He pulled a tractor down on himself. He'd dropped a coin on the floor, and he was trying to shake it out."  
"Oh, that is very sad."  
"Yes, we were good friends. He used to go up to my bedroom and I'd tell him my secrets. Then he'd tell everybody else. And when I was really upset about anything, he'd cheer me up right away by licking my bellybutton."  
"...He did?"  
"Yes, he did. And that's what I'm going to do for you now." And she tugged on Geraldine's waistband.

After a few shocked moments, Geraldine grabbed Alice's shoulders and gently pulled her up. "That's not my bellybutton, Alice."  
"It's not? I suppose now you're going to tell me that when he put his finger in my bellybutton, that wasn't his finger either, Miss Geraldine Vicar. Well it was, and do you want to be cheered up or don't you?" Alice looked fierce.  
"Alice, I would love to, only I think you should know what the Bible says about girls licking other girls' bellybuttons. Saint Paul said "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.""  
"But if *God* gave them over-" Alice began, but Geraldine swept on.  
"And in Genesis, don't you know, God said "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that's detestable.""

Alice frowned and sat in silent thought, her head bowed, her hands still folded on Geraldine's knees. After a moment she sat up straighter.  
"Vicar, I've thought about Genesis, and I've made up my mind. I will never lick a man's bellybutton or put my finger in it." And she reached for the waistband again.  
Geraldine put a hand on her shoulder to stop her, and twisted around to look at the portrait on her wall, silently expostulating. Alice shook her hand off and gripped her vicar by the chin.  
"Don't you *like* me, Geraldine?"  
Geraldine crumbled. "I never did like that passage anyway," she muttered.

 

Some time later, holding Alice in her arms, she addressed the portrait once again. "'A new commandment,' You said. I'm going to hold You to that, You realise."

End


End file.
